LinkedIn, Lynda.com and the Skills You’ll Need for Your Next Job

Skills are a big business these days. LinkedIn Corp.’s decision to buy online training platform Lynda.com for about $1.5 billion makes that point with an exclamation mark.

With employers lamenting that they can’t find enough people with high-demand digital skills, and workers increasingly expected to develop skills on their own rather than through the workplace, it’s a busy time the field of web-based training. Recent entrants include Grovo, Udemy, and Wranx, and most offer classes to individuals but make the bulk of their revenue through partnerships with corporate customers.

It’s not yet clear how LinkedIn will integrate Lynda.com’s thousands of courses, but in a blog post Thursday, Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn’s head of global content products, suggested that the network will try to match users with courses that fill gaps in their skill sets.